Monthly Archives: October 2012

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – A simple amendment to the Alabama state constitution could set the stage for blocking implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the Heart of Dixie.

Alabama voters will consider Amendment 6 on Nov. 6. The legislatively-referred amendment would free Alabama citizens from any requirement to participate in Obamacare, or any other compulsory health care program.The ballot language reads as follows:

Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, to prohibit any person, employer, or health care provider from being compelled to participate in any health care system.

Yes ___

No ___

“We want the people of Alabama to know that if we’re going to join a program like that we’re going to have it on a ballot, and you and me and everyone will be able to vote and decide if we want to join a national health plan or not,” Rep. Phil Williams (R-Madison) said.

If passed, the amendment would place the onus on the Alabama legislature and executive branch to block implementation of the PPACA and shield their citizens from federal mandates.

The proposed amendment had to garner a 60 percent majority in both the House and the Senate to go to the voters. A simple majority on Nov. 6 will approve the amendment.

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In science, there are lots of facts, but only a few theories. Fewer still, perhaps, are the “laws” of science, one of which is the Law of Conservation of Matter, which holds that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. The laws of science, however, aren’t good enough for the Federal Reserve — you see, the Fed creates money.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, the Federal Reserve has created trillions of new dollars. The Fed creates money when it buys assets, which is called “quantitative easing,” or QE. The assets the Fed buys can be “whatever assets it likes: government bonds, equities, houses, corporate bonds or other assets from banks.” For instance, when it launched QE2 in Nov. 2010, the Fed bought $600B in U.S. Treasury bonds.

Just as the Fed creates money, it also destroys money. The Fed destroys money when it sells assets. When the Fed sells its assets, it takes money out of the system; that money is then no longer out in the economy where folks can use it. (I’m not sure if the Fed hits the delete button when the checks for its sales clear, or if that even matters.)

One would think with so many trillions of new dollars pumped out into the world that “price inflation” would erupt. That hasn’t happened because the Fed’s new money isn’t circulating; it’s “sitting on the sidelines.” That the Fed’s new dollars are idle may be a boon, respecting price inflation. For if commercial banks were indeed loaning their new money out, the number of dollars in the system would be even greater than what the Fed has created. That’s because of the money multiplier of our “fractional reserve” banking system. But, if the Fed’s new money started to be used in the economy, price inflation should return. In which case the Fed would need to end QE and begin what analysts call the “exit strategy.”

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At any time, our country is either moving towards freedom or towards tyranny; Towards the founding American ideals or away from them; Towards the idea that we are all created equal and endowed with the natural rights to life, liberty and property or away from that idea. Sadly, throughout my life, government has grown and freedom has diminished. This is unsustainable, but no matter who wins the Nov. 6 election, expect the trend to continue. Our main problem is structural, not electoral.

The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution says that powers which were not delegated to the federal government were reserved for the states and the people. This codified systematic checks into a design which James Madison referred to as a “compound republic”. As most know, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches were intended to check each other inside the federal government. Less known is that the states, the people, and the federal government were intended to act as checks on each other when one seized a power that should be held by another.

When we blindly support politicians because of the (D)s or (R)s after their names, or when our states become financially dependent upon federal handouts (which are taken, in part, from our children), this delicate balance of power is threatened.

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Webster’s defines “governor” in two ways:There is the governor in an engine, which controls (limits) the engine’s speed so that it doesn’t burn itself up. And there is the other, more commonly known use of the term governor, which is that of a political appointee.who heads up a state or region; a state in our system of government.

In the latter definition, the governor is like the CEO of a state. Governors have the duties and responsibilities that are granted by their state’s constitution. They also swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution, which was created by the states to do those things that were better tackled by a body that is beholden to the states–its collective boss. Those duties are spelled out in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

A state’s governor is the state’s primary representative or emissary to other states, the federal government, and to other nations when trade is involved. Governors have a lot on their plates as they attend legislative sessions, attend governors conferences, attend miscellaneous functions, tour disaster areas (and then present an open hand to the federal government), etcetera.

With all of that, there is one thing that is largely missing from the plates from almost all of the U.S. governors: the protection of the people they represent from an overreaching federal government. I realize that governors’ hands are largely tied by their duties, but there is still one big thing that they can do without fear of a legal hassle, and that is to speak out loudly and often against unconstitutional federal incursions against their state.

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Marijuana. Pot. Weed. Medicine. Whatever you call the plant, Washington DC considers it dangerous and illegal. Laws on the books in Congress – illegal. The executive branch – aggressive about enforcing those laws. The supreme court – in 2005 ruled against the idea of states legalizing for any purpose. But yet, 17 states have been…

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The latest polling data for Colorado’s Amendment 64, which aims to legalize marijuana in direct opposition to federal laws, reveals a growth in support since the previous survey data, and the amendment looks to be marching its way towards victory on November 6th.

Seventeen states already have medical marijuana laws on the books, but now Colorado, Oregon and Washington want to expand that to recreational use. If the measure passes in any of those states, it could serve as a bellwether, creating a de-facto nullification of federal laws on pot with an even greater effect than 17 state medical marijuana laws have had.

Three other states are voting on medical marijuana this November, including Arkansas, which is the first southern state to consider it.

Public Policy Polling surveyed 904 likely voters in Colorado from October 23rd to 25th and found they support Amendment 64 by 53%. Only 43% were opposed and the number of undecideds has shrunk to 5%.

The “disposition matrix” has been developed and will be overseen by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). One of its purposes is “to augment” the “separate but overlapping kill lists” maintained by the CIA and the Pentagon: to serve, in other words, as the centralized clearinghouse for determining who will be executed without due process based upon how one fits into the executive branch’s “matrix”.

According to reports, the plans for perpetuating and perfecting the death-by-drone program “contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations.”

The article quotes “U.S. officials” saying that the matrix will improve the existing pair of kill lists (one maintained by the President, the other kept by the CIA) by “mapping plans for the ‘disposition’ of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.”

Readers unfamiliar with the argot of the White House and the intelligence community should understand that the phrase “plans for the disposition” of someone means plans for summarily executing a person who has never been accused of a crime and who has never been proven to have any plan to attack the United States or its interests.

Habeas Corpus – it holds mystique as the greatest anglo-american legal protection. The federal government has held it in pretty low regard over the years – from Japanese internment camps to guantanamo bay and now the NDAA. Anthony Gregory joins us this week to talk about the Writ’s role in the power struggle between the federal government and the states. He also discusses the proper scope of federal habeas for state prisoners and for wartime detainees from the Civil War and World War II to the modern War on Terror.

Anthony Gregory is Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and author of the forthcoming book the Power of Habeas Corpus in America from Cambridge University Press. He’s written for Huffington Post, the American Conservative, LewRockwell.com, the Future of Freedom Foundation, and Antiwar.com.